Is the Wilson-King partnership about to be broken up?

Sky Sports' pundit Paul Merson has come out strongly about Chelsea's interest in Callum Wilson, saying that Dominic Solanke did not sign for Bournemouth not to play games. Merson is sure that Wilson is leaving in the January window, and yet our local Bournemouth Echo is sure that Chelsea will be rebuffed, even if they make a £50m bid for the striker.

Has Wilson ambitions to play at a top six club?

My understanding is that Solanke has come in to replace Jermain Defoe who has gone out on loan to Rangers. The chance for Solanke to play at Bournemouth is still much better than it was at Liverpool, and he will have to wait his time behind Wilson and King for an opportunity if the main two strikers find it hard to score goals.

If Wilson is sold in January and Bournemouth recoup a big fee, they would be gambling with their league position. Wilson is easily the club's best striker on nine goals and to swap that for a player with no Premier League goals is surely too big a gamble for AFCB, even if we are half way through the season.

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While AFCB could use the transfer money to buy a central midfielder and or another defender we might have to wait until the summer for that to occur. AFCB don't want to be left short with just three main strikers in King, Solanke and Mousset as we have seen that using Fraser, Brooks and Stanislas as stand in strikers hasn't really worked over December and January.

If the King and Wilson partnership is broken up in January, then I can also see Josh King be a potential man on the move this summer. AFCB's stable player structure is being tested, but perhaps it is not necessarily a bad thing for AFCB to freshen up the squad.

Ibe will be the man at AFCB in 2018/19

Sky pundit Paul Merson has been looking at the players who he thinks may be the ones to watch out for next season and for AFCB he has picked out Jordan Ibe. Ibe certainly picked up his game last season and his good form started to result in goal opportunities and assists. It has taken him a bit of a while to get to grips with the Cherries' style, but now there surely can't be a lot holding him back from being AFCB's top creative player, if he can stay injury-free.

The best of Jordan Ibe may be just around the corner.

Eddie Howe has been clever to pick players who have been perhaps snapped up a bit prematurely by some of the big clubs in the Premier League, and who have not slipped straight into the first teams with great consistency. It has been a gamble and in some cases it might not work out, but while Jordan Ibe looked out of sorts in his first season at AFCB, that can't be said of last season.

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How much further Ibe can now go is not clear, but there have been national newspapers even wondering if he has the talent to push his way into the thoughts of Gareth Southgate after the summer. If he gets a good start to next season, and starts to find the net more regularly, I could see him getting a call up. While it seems Ibe has been around for ages, we can easily forget that he is just 22 and he has a few years yet before he reaches his peak.

Ibe is one of those players who has a habit of frustrating fans, because we can see he has special qualities, but you can also see that he will make the wrong choice just when he could make the killer pass. But he has started to pick up on when he can take a chance and when he needs to retain possession. Whether he can start believing that he is one of the best players at the club is perhaps his next hurdle, because a confident Jordan Ibe would be a player that will start to win games for AFCB, and I'm sure that is what Paul Merson can see in him.

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